Space concrete

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

The question would be how would you control this, in space with limited resources.

There isn't really a lack of resources as such in the asteroid belt though, you have most of the basic elements you can get on earth, they're probably more accessible because they're in their raw state. The machinery needed would be a massive expense but once you're over that initial cost of building a space mining/factory you have unlimited resources at your disposal. Once the first one is up it effectively copy itself.

I was wondering would it just be easier to make everything out of metal as there's probably plenty of iron floating around up there too but you'd need to be able to smelt it. Which comes with many of the same problems as concrete and requires machining. concrete is moldable but containing it and getting it to set would be the problem. It could probably be made to take hits better too.

The other question is would this material be suitable for the stresses and rigours of space, generally concrete needs to be reinforced with steel for many applications.

Steel could be accessed for re enforcement too, on earth concrete/steel buildings are under a constant 1g, add daily lateral wind forces into that mix and a space ship might not generate much more forces than they'd experience on a daily basis here on earth. Once you point the ship in the right direction at the right speed it shouldn't need much violent corrections after that.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

There is native iron on the moon and in asteroids, and NASA's DAWN probe is arriving at the minor planet Ceres now so we will know a great deal more soon.

Asteroids seem to have plenty of easy access iron. So I'd wonder would it be as easy to use that? There are still numerous advantages to a concrete like material.

for Mars and the Moon and probably for the asteriods the hope would be to find an old lava tunnel or cave which solves most of the building problem as well as providing a shield from the radiation that the earths magnetic field protects from.

The problem as I would see it with using a cave or tunnel is that you'd still essentially need to build a sealed living space inside it, you couldn't rely on the cave to be structurally sound. You also have to spend time finding caves that would work.


I think if space travel is going to work into the future we need to be able to build big for little cost. I think once you got over the initial hump of building in space that it would become very easy for us to build everything in space without needing any help from earth.